Chances Past
by AuroraExecution
Summary: It's the last time, and Draco knows it. H/D, with optional ending.
1. Chances Past

**Notes:** Not completely what you think it is. Very very angsty, and was originally meant to end with just this section. Unfortunately, after I finished, Harry threw a fit (surprisingly, not Draco) about how I'd damaged his character by not letting him go after Draco. So...there ended up being a fluffy-ish optional ending if you're like me (and Harry) and angsty endings kill you. Fear not though--tigersilver just betaed another angst fic for me that doesn't get a fluffy ending, so that should be around soon~

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**Chances Past**

It's the last time, and Draco knows it.

He'd found the letter weeks ago, sitting on the kitchen table. _Dearest Harry_, it had said, and Draco had remembered he'd never called Harry that himself. The letter was from Ginny Weasley, saying she was returning to London for a while in the summer, and did Harry remember when she asked him to wait? Because now she had made her choice and wanted to try again.

He'd heard the Floo conversation, later, having walked into the flat without Harry noticing. Harry had promised Ginny to meet her again, and when she said she'd missed him, that was a definite smile, not the pasted-on kind that Draco felt was all he saw anymore.

He'd been there, in the café, at a different table, when Harry's friends told him excitedly how wonderful it was that he and Ginny were getting back together. And Draco had reminded himself then that he was a dignified person, and that he and Harry had never said their relationship was exclusive or built on real feelings, or really anything more than a matter of sexual convenience.

And now, it's the last night, because Draco knows Harry will meet his ginger-haired lover in the morning, and somehow he can't delude himself that Harry would throw it away for _him_.

He knows it's the end, because Harry is being _gentle_, and it's almost wrong how good it all feels. It's not that everything else felt bad, but Draco has never felt quite like _this_, being touched so reverently. He can't help the piercingly intense desire to reciprocate in like kind, so he sweeps his hands feather-light over Harry's hips instead of gripping them until they bruise.

And fuck, he doesn't care about this, because he doesn't love Harry and Harry doesn't love him. None of it matters, has ever mattered, and he won't change when it's over. He just…he just wants to give Harry a reason to remember him, even if he's not sure why he's so desperate not to be forgotten. _So that he regrets leaving me_, Draco tells himself. So that when Harry is married to the nice, normal, acceptable Weasley girl, he'll sleep with her and remember what it felt like to sleep with Draco, and find his wife inadequate. It's out of spite, Draco insists to his treasonous mind.

He wants Harry's last time with him to be special, and he wants Harry to feel this impossibly good too, so that later, when Draco will inevitably be trying to find this again with someone, and probably failing, Harry will be in the same position. He wants…he wants…he wants Harry to feel what he does—the sharp jabs in the chest, as if something crystalline were splintering slowly.

--

Harry's terrified that this is going to be the last time.

Draco's body is trembling, his hands gliding erratically and softly over Harry's skin. He thinks Draco probably hasn't noticed it, but the Slytherin is wet-eyed, and the sounds he makes are softer and sadder than usual.

He's not sure why, but Draco has withdrawn in the past week, pulling away more, looking more put out than usual, losing the spitefulness and sarcasm that makes him Draco. Harry has to keep reminding himself that Draco had promised him only a sex friend, not a lover, and Harry doesn't have the right to keep him.

Ginny's come home recently, and he really should have jumped at the chance to reconcile with her. But somehow, the more he thought about it, no matter how excitedly his friends had told him to try it out, he couldn't bring himself to go back. Not anymore. Not when he's known _this_ every day.

And even if Draco isn't really his lover, and even if Ginny could provide the affection he's searching for, it isn't so much a search for simple affection anymore. What Harry wants now is too hard to define by anything other than: to stay here forever.

He wants to wake up and see hazy white-gold in the mornings, and squeeze tightly against Draco on cold nights when Draco steals the blankets. He wants to spend evenings drinking Firewhisky with Draco in front of the fire, and getting just tipsy enough to make out sloppily. He wants fiery fights, and amazing makeup sex, and he wants that glowing feeling of being all right again.

He doesn't want to give this up.

So, he's found his decision much less difficult than he originally thought, and he's resolved to tell Ginny as much tomorrow. But the way Draco is clinging to him, almost desperately, is scaring him. Draco has always _wanted_, he's never _needed_. He's never cried out so loudly and openly, with words like "please" and "good" and "Harry". He's never closed his eyes.

Harry holds on tightly as Draco came down from the high, and it almost feels like Draco is going to disappear in his arms right now. But he doesn't, and Harry lays him back down. He watches Draco's breathing even out into sleep, thinking that tomorrow, come hell or high water, he'll tell Draco everything. He'll say that he doesn't want to leave, and he doesn't want just a convenience, that he wants something real, no matter how insane and stupid it is. And if Draco walks away, Harry knows he's going to fight tooth and nail to make him come back.

After finally experiencing how good it can actually be, he's not going to be satisfied with only this one chance. In the past, he's always thought, maybe tomorrow, maybe later, maybe when Draco's in a better mood. There's always been an excuse, because he was afraid of the backlash from all directions. But now, he tells himself as he tentatively strokes Draco's hair, he is making himself a promise.

Tomorrow. He'll say it tomorrow.

--

Draco knows Harry is watching him, and it's hard not to change his mind and try to encroach on Harry's life forever, just to always feel such a sense of mutual fondness.

But then, Draco remembers everything that's about to happen tomorrow, and he sets his resolve. As soon as Harry subsides into heavy, even breaths, Draco slides silently from the bed and walks to the desk.

He's already prepared it all, the note and the things he wants to take, so he simply removes them from the desk drawer and lays them out. When he was planning this, he hadn't wanted to take anything. It would be better if nothing reminds him of this fling that was already on the verge of meaning too much to him.  
_  
Just angry schoolboy lust_, he repeats to himself, like a prayer, _just some inane desires that we've fulfilled anyway_.

But then he'd imagined a life in which he'd completely and totally forgotten Harry, and he'd felt as though most of his identity was ripped away. His final solution had been to pick something small and unnoticeable, something for which the memory might fade eventually.

It had been a frantic morning, both of them running late, and one of Draco's reports was due when he walked in the door, but he'd just noticed an error.

"Harry, why haven't you got any quills around here?"

"Here, use a pen."

And Harry had clicked the pen out, and handed it to Draco. The Muggle contraption had enthralled Draco, so Harry had let him keep it.

It's out of ink by now, but Harry's said he'll teach Draco to refill the ink sometime. They'll never get around to it now, of course, so Draco thinks maybe one day he'll try to do it on his own. Just as a bit of nostalgia.

He takes the pen and his coat and his keys, and puts on his shoes. Standing at the door, he pauses, imagining himself being caught by Harry, who would miraculously make him stay. Draco shakes his head to bring himself back into reality. With a swift motion, he is gone.

_I didn't love him or anything_, he tells himself.

_Then why are you giving him up?_ asks a voice in Draco's head.

Draco doesn't know the answer. 


	2. Chances Past: Optional Ending

**Notes:** Here is the optional, somewhat fluffier ending for this story. Let me tell you, they were NOT ok with my original ending. Harry was very unhappy that I didn't let him go after Draco, and Draco just sat around sulking until I finally wrote this up. As a warning, though it ought to be obvious, it gets really very sappy at the end. So, um. This is your last chance to turn back.

Also--all the cursing? I blame tigersilver, who forced me to stop being a wuss when she betaed one of my other fics, and changed "fooling around" to the much less awkward "fucking around".

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**Chances Past - Optional Ending**

Someone is banging at his door.

Someone. Is banging. At his door. _Loudly_.

Draco casts a Tempus—it's five in the morning—and rolls out of bed to hex his visitor into a crippled toad covered in oozing boils. He is _not_ in a good mood, he does _not_ wish to be awake, he does _not_ like being conscious enough to think, and he has _no_ desire to speak to anyone for the next week or so. He figures he'll recover after about a week, on a healthy diet of alcohol, sex friends, and making other people cry.

When he finally reaches the door and opens it, his first thought is that he really should have known, but then, he'd assumed Harry would just go back to his girlfriend like the good little Gryffindor he was. Obviously, he's underestimated just how Gryffindor Harry can be. He figures the git probably wants to apologize, and say that he never wanted it to be like this, and all that rot.

"I don't want to hear it, Potter," Draco snaps.

Harry's eyes widen. "…What?"

"I don't want to hear it."

And then they narrow. "What exactly don't you want to hear?" he demands, voice soft with danger. Draco ignores the warning and sighs.

"Whatever half-true clichés you're here to throw at me, Potter. '_I'm sorry it had to end like this_.' '_It just wouldn't have worked out_.' You know, the things people say when they break up with people they never cared all that much for anyway." Surprise flickers momentarily through Harry's eyes before it fades from the still-narrowed gaze.

"Is that what you think I'm here to do?"

"Well, _obviously_, Potter, when you're about to get back together with your Weasley girlfriend. _Should_ I expect something else?" There is a painfully long moment, as Draco waits for the inevitable. Suddenly, like the sun rising, a benevolent, shy smile creeps over Harry's face.

"I didn't know you'd—I mean, you weren't supposed—I was going to tell you. In the morning." He scratches his head in embarrassment. "I mean, I guess it's morning, so I might as well tell you."

"What are you _on_ about?" Draco demands waspishly. Harry takes a deep, long breath and looks away.

"Ginny wanted to meet me today, to—well, to talk about things. We'd sort of split, you know, when she left to travel with the Harpies. And, well, everyone was saying how great it would be if we got together again, so I got to thinking. I know you said that-that you and I weren't serious or anything, but I just…I just—"

There's a pause, as he struggles a little for words.

"I didn't want to leave," Harry says finally. "I was going to tell you in the morning."

At this, Draco's head snaps up and he meets Harry's eyes. "I thought…"

"Last night, I almost felt like you might have realized, but then I woke up and you were gone and there was that note—"

"I thought you wanted to go back to her."

"Why?" Harry asks, moving forward, "Why?" And he grabs Draco in nearly-suffocating hold, still afraid Draco will vanish again.

"She's normal," Draco protests, but his arms are creeping around Harry's body. "She loves you."

"And you don't?" asks Harry with a whispery smile.

"We don't _have_ that kind of a relationship." Draco stubbornly repeats what's familiar, what he knows he can trust. He doesn't want to accept what Harry's saying, because he's tired of wishing for things he isn't supposed to want. "You were supposed to marry the Weasley girl and leave me alone."

"Then what gave you the right to tell me what to do?" Harry demands, a trace of anger still not quite vanished. "You wrote that stupid note, saying not to talk to you anymore, and made out like you were looking out for _me_—"

"What? That's not what I meant to—"

"You sounded like you were going to languish away miserably while I pranced off and magically un-ponced myself so I could marry someone else. How could I _not_ come after you, you bloody fucking wanker, even at bloody five o'clock in the bloody morning?"

And Draco wants to argue, he really does, but it's always been hard for him to do it with Harry's tongue in his mouth. He's knows this is ridiculous, because this is a relationship that will never work, really, and they're snogging on the bloody stairs at fuck o'clock in the morning, and Draco feels like he's never going to stop smiling ever again.

When they finally break apart, Harry begins pushing into Draco's flat. "I assume I can stay here, then," the prat says with a brilliant smile, shoving Draco towards the bedroom.

"Only if you promise to stay here _forever_," Draco replies, in a petulant tone that hasn't seen use since before the war.

"Am I allowed to go to work?" Harry asks, unfazed, already peeling at their clothes. A sloppy grin starts to slip through Draco's smirk, and he gives up trying to hold it back.

"I'll think about it."


End file.
